What’s RescueTime?

RescueTime is a time direction &amp; Productivity software firm founded in 2008. The RescueTime program runs in the background of your devices tracking, measuring and categorizing your activity.

RescueTime is a free program with a premium update That allows features and more special reporting like offline moment input. It delivers a reporting dash with your information diced sliced and sorted into useful charts to assist you manage your own time.

The app is based on Peter Drucker’s (the famous Management consultant) maxim that”what gets measured, gets managed.”

RescueTime takes the manual tracking of time That you actually track your own time so that and makes it painless and automatic .

That said, there are dozens and dozens of Improvement &amp; time management programs on the Internet. What are the pros &amp; cons of RescueTime? Here is what I have noticed over time.

Disclosure — I get referral fees Mentioned on this website. Any data or opinions are all based on my expertise as a paying customer or consultant to a paying client. Study Time Tracker

Rescuing Your Time

To reiterate, RescumeTime is a productivity tool in the Feel that it helps your skills improve. It collects data about the programs and websites you use, then creates reports based on that information.

You install a and create an account to get started Desktop program on your personal computer (s) and optionally a mobile app on Android apparatus ) There is no iOS program because the operating system prevents RescueTime from collecting the information it needs to carry out its purpose. Those apps quietly and invisibly monitor which programs you use and which sites you visit, as well as the quantity of time spent on them.

The hard nut to crack is the Way to make sense of all that information. To get the best results, you have to customize your account from the RescueTime site and inform the app more about what you believe productive versus unproductive activity. The more you fine-tune it to your specific circumstances, the greater your results. As an example, somebody who works in the finances industry might classify reading financial news on sites including MarketWatch and FT.com as a productivity task, whereas for me, that is an unproductive use of time.

You can categorize every app and website on a 5-point Scale of quite productive, effective, neutral, dependable, and very unproductive. You can also categorize activity into perform categorizes. For example, I record Google Docs as very productive, and I categorized it as Writing, which will be a subcategory of Layout and Composition. Looking at Redfin.com is very distracting when I’m trying to function, and I’ve categorized it .

From the desktop app, there’s an easy set of controllers That lets you pause RescueTime for 15 minutes, 1 hour, or till tomorrow, giving you easy access to shifting the program off for days or breaks when you wrap up early.

Privacy

When faced with RescueTime’s proposition–We’ll track All you do and give you insights about your habits! –some individuals might, justifiably, worry about their privacy and the security of information on their hardware. If you use sensitive information on the internet or keep sensitive information in your computers and mobile devices, you’ll want to browse RescueTime’s privacy and security statements closely.

For everybody RescueTime’s privacy policy Includes a summary at the very top, just a couple of stiff lines that are worth reading.

If your concerns are more relaxed and you simply don’t Want RescueTime monitoring you on the weekend, you have control over the times and days the program monitors your behaviour. You can easily set it to only watch your activity from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or whatever program suits you.

Reports

I’ve used RescueTime for decades, and I do not check my Productivity reports. I like to let the service run in the background so that when I do want to get a better picture of how I have been spending my time, a fantastic amount of information is awaiting me.

When I do go through the reports, however, they are Magnificent. I really like the variety, giving you get multiple ways of knowing your productivity and customs, from bar graphs and pie graphs that reveal lump amounts of action, to line things of applications you employed.

One simple but powerful piece of information RescueTime Supplies is an investigation of when during the daytime you tend to be the most successful. I was not surprised to observe that my brain peaks in the morning and slacks off after 2:00 p.m., as that fits fairly well with what I know about my customs. If you have never studied your productivity, however, that might be a beneficial revelation for you, one that might help you schedule your times more productively.

The longer you use RescueTime Premium, the more applicable the Data becomesbecause you may view your statistics daily, week, month, or year. And as you might expect, it is possible to toggle that times and days RescueTime records your action so that it turns off automatically on weekends, for example. Study Time Tracker

Additional Capabilities

Much of the value you get from RescueTime comes in that which You make of this data and the way you use that data to affect your own behavior. Changing behaviour is hard, but getting rich insights doesn’t need to be.

One of the ways RescueTime makes it easy to understand how To interpret all of the data it collects is using a Productivity Pulse score. This daily evaluation, shown as a percentage, comes from calculating the percentage of time spent very productive, productive, impartial, unproductive, and very wasteful jobs. To be clear, nobody is advocating you target for a 100 percent Productivity Pulse score.

A RescueTime blog post describing the productivity Score notes that the typical score is 67 percent, and the in-house average is 79 percent. Most people need to do some job that is not considered”very productive” during daily. The entire point of using RescueTime will be to help you work out how to concentrate on productive and incredibly productive tasks when you need to and perhaps save less productive activities for times when your ability to concentrate has been waning anyway.

Tasks are not the Exact Same thing as distractions. RescueTime has a simple and smart attribute for curbing behavior, like getting sucked into websites , also. A feature called FocusTime, when enabled, blocks your ability to access. It takes a little setting up and customization, but once it’s ready to set up, it’s quite powerful. As an example, let’s say you want to finish a report, and to make progress on it, you need to focus hardcore for the next thirty minutes. Switch FocusTime, and it may block you from looking posting on Twitter, checking sports scores, or whatever other websites and activities you deem distracting.

The RescueTime mobile app has a setting that will Mechanically silence your phone you enable FocusTime. Likewise, you may set up other automation with the support of third party services IFTTTFree at iTunes Store and Zapier to block or silence additional distractions. By way of instance, you may create a rule with IFTTT (it stands for”if this, then that”) that states,”When I enable FocusTime, then mechanically set my Slack standing to busy.”

RescueTime also gives you the option Idle moment. Any time RescueTime notices the computer has been idle for many minutes at a row, so it pops up a dialog asking if you’re at a meeting, on the phone, taking rest, etc, and permits you to classify the idle time accordingly.

Advantages of RescueTime

Here is a Number of the advantages of using RescueTime Over solutions. Study Time Tracker

Feature Set

At its core, RescueTime does something — track time. When you look at it like this, it’s not super special. Technically, you could do some of the dozens of free programs or this with a spreadsheet online.

But RescueTime’s feature set The way that it tracks time and what it does with the data (aka, one you’ll actually use).

RescueTime watches which windows have Activity, looks at times, and the window title the activity in this window. It is always running in the background watching.

Unobtrustive makes RescueTime rewarding. There is no friction or barrier to monitoring time.

Since RescueTime’s monitoring feature solves that Problem, you’ll have data that is complete, useful & appropriate.

RescueTime’s other features focus on making their Core feature. They do not attempt to add on characteristics that are complementary like time-tracking &amp; billing. They don’t try to get into any side businesses.

They do have Feature in an intriguing way. For example, the Get Focused! Feature blocks programs from running when selected.

They have alerts and goals that Permit You to decide What when X occurs, you want to occur — and RescueTime will do this based on what it is monitoring.

I love RescueTime does Offline Time Tracking. Rather than having to search and add it 100% manually, you select a time period that is unlogged and fill in the blank.

You can even customize the buttons to create logging Offline time quick and simple.

It is a minimalist feature but that What makes it great. It is easy, simple and well-done.

Pricing and Plans

RescueTime provides two tiers of service: Lite (free) and Premium ($9 per month or $72 per year). Firms or organizations that want to utilize RescueTime across a bunch of people pay the exact same speed.

RescueTime Lite offers lots for Somebody Who Has never Monitored his or her time. The program monitors which websites and programs you use, and how long you spend on or in every one of them. You can categorize each app and site you are using on a Productive/Unproductive scale, also RescueTime generates a couple of primary reports showing the best way to spend your own time. Lite members can place weekly objectives, such as”spend X hours per week on productive tasks and fewer than Y minutes on unproductive products.” It’s possible to find a weekly report email to you. For reports, you are confined to some three-month history.

Paying subscribers get everything from the Lite program, Plus extra features and reports, including an history. Premium comes with alarms you can empower for when you reach objectives. You can more correctly log time spent away from the computer, noting whether you were in a meeting, on a telephone call, or just out to lunch. Furthermore, there is a Get Focused option, which permits you to block websites you place. Study Time Tracker

Assessing RescueTime’s price to that of other apps Needs an open mind because programs do exactly what RescueTime does. Qbserve is one of the most similar programs you can find, and it charges a flat fee of $40.

We can, however, look at more Programs for freelancers that contain tools for creating invoices. HarvestFree at Harvest is a decent example. At $12 per person per month for Premium, it costs more than RescueTime, but it has a very clear return on investment since it helps ensure more accurate charging. How you will interpret RescueTime’s reports and make better use of your time as a consequence is not as clear.

Toggl Popular among salespeople, prices $9 per month, and it provides you tools for tracking time spent on projects with charging clients’ end aim. Toggl doesn’t include its own invoicing tools, but it has integration options for linking with other invoicing services.

A few apps are nearer to RescueTime in what they have to Offer, for example Slife, although they tend to have fewer features even if they are free (and Slife is).

Either way — RescueTime is a no-brainer pricing-wise. It’s free to use.

And if the attributes save you just One hour each month then it’s paid for itself even if you are simply making US minimum wage.

RescueTime is.

App Quality

A common problem with tracking programs of all kinds is That they must be on. The”always on” attribute can cause performance issues on laptops &amp; desktop computers. It can cause battery problems on mobile devices.

But in my experience, RescueTime causes neither. It’s running in my Windows PC my Macbook Pro, along with also my Nexus 5x phone. I have never tracked any battery life or performance issues to the app.

It’s lightweight and well-built.

I enjoy the fact that the app does not demand Dozens of ridiculous permissions. It requires access to usage data, but doesn’t attempt to track emails, contacts, location, or any of those typical privacy violating other programs ask for.

It is quick to set up and syncs using an online dashboard. It crunches the information quickly if you’re on the Premium plan or by next day to the program that is free, and pulls in precisely the time.

Reporting

What’s the purpose of data if it can’t be interpreted by you ? Study Time Tracker

RescueTime’s accounts solves this problem — and in Lots of ways is the entire point of working with the program.

And on Top of That, you can dig into the Reporting with numerous filters and overlays to find out your habits.

It’s really eye-opening to determine that the actual amount of Time that each job happens.

When I working for a marketing agency in Atlanta — The time monitored to Instant Messages and Gchats was astonishing. It altered my job supervisors personally, but also processes not only for me.

Now I’m on my own with no full-time workers — I can see the time that I devote to jobs that matter. I am able to construct my day around those.

And Simply to reiterate Built-in to the software. The Dashboard is on my default — and reports are pre-built.

It’s all effective, seamless and quick so that you Are wasting time when analyzing your time.

Integrations

Among the selling points of RescueTime is their feature set minimalism. They do something and they do it nicely.

That said — most all people using their product Have applications needs that are time-based. Whether it’s charging, project management, team time tracking or something your time demands don’t cease with measuring tracking and categorization.

To solve that Issue, RescueTime’s software Integrates with a massive range. They’ve an open API and guide integrations with software.

Whether you are Time tracking into invoicing applications like FreshBooks or even a project manager that needs to collate team member’s time, RescueTime will likely integrate with this.

Disadvantages of RescueTime

Like any applications RescueTime is Perfect nor can it be the best fit for everybody. Here’s some pitfalls that I’ve noticed over the years. Study Time Tracker

Default Get Focused! Groups

In general, RescueTime’s categories are fairly good. Sites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter are”Very Distracting”…for most people. And for tracking, RescueTime’s categories are fast &amp; easy to repair.

But RescueTime’s categories News, sites and research sites’ subdomains.

I can not use the Get Focused! Performance for any Task that needs research (aka visiting a bunch of different websites).

The time I need smart blocking Functionality is when I am doing research for a post

There’s a fine line between which really is productive and When I’m researching this is distracting. It’d be great to use RescueTime, but the classes are not accurate enough for this to operate.

The root issue is the Block Sites function Is not available in reverse (ie, add specific sites to block). I am only able to add sites to unblock.

And if I’m visiting several sites were blocked by dozen — Adding them becomes the time wasting.

If you are currently looking for an program that will block Specific sites — RescueTime is not it.

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

If you do the wrong thing for 18 hours per day, Every day with focus that is ideal — you are doing the incorrect thing.

The most important factor in time direction is to Work on the right things .

And that. RescueTime Can’t fix that issue.

Actually, in certain ways, RescueTime can hurt your By pushing you towards improved efficient doing over planning, research and strategy efforts.

If effectiveness is the heart issue RescueTime isn’t for you. It’ll only make matters worse.

Instead, I’d recommend reading some of them books.

Wrap-up

RescueTime continues to be an invaluable tool for me. It’s not for everybody and has pitfalls and some attribute quirks.

Nevertheless, the thing it’s supplied is perspective. It’s easy to believe you”work a ton” or are”not addicted to your phone” or”invest as much time composing” or are”hardly ever on Facebook.”

However, the data doesn’t lie. And utilizing RescueTime to Get precise time data onto your digital time will be able to assist you conserve your own time and place your own life in perspective. Study Time Tracker